Greetings Dear Members and Friends of ERUUF,
As we come to the close of 2024, I have been reflecting not only on the year that is ending but also on what might yet come. In looking back and forward, there is cause for joy that, despite the chaos of this past year, the fear, disappointment, frustration, worry, and concern, we received many people into the embrace of ERUUF’s radical welcome.
We can be deeply heartened that our Unitarian Universalist message is a beacon, with our values of inclusion, pluralism, justice, equity, transformation, generosity, and love becoming known in the community beyond “just us.” I hold great gratitude in this, because we co-create it together.
Which brings us to Now. It is with gratitude that I share with you the joyful news that a generous member of our congregation has presented us with a challenge grant of $250,000. The challenge before us is to match this grant 1:3 by raising $750,000 by January 31, 2025.
As you consider your end-of-year giving or get a start on your plans for 2025, I invite you to join other members and friends who are contributing to this goal. After reaching out to some of our long-term members about this unique challenge grant, we have raised $380,000, so we are already halfway there.
The successful completion of the challenge grant would support:
- Raising what is needed for a budget typical for a congregation of our size (currently $1.2 million) while keeping pace with inflation.
- Addressing near-term campus maintenance needs.
- Providing working capital to support sustainable growth.
- Creating stability and resilience as we continue in the development of a long-term financial plan. A long-term financial planning process that will serve as a prelude to a potential capital campaign in several years.
Contrribute to Special Campaign
The $1 million will be used to replenish our Strategic Initiatives Fund and Campus Needs Fund that, according to schedule, will be depleted in the coming two years. These two funds allow us to take care of major needs for our facilities, balance our operating budget, and imagine and target key initiatives.
Ultimately we seek to have the infrastructure and capacity to engage both our current people and times as we continue being a beacon of radical welcome; a UU haven that is committed to living its values and Mission of being a religious community that seeks to transform lives through spirit, service, justice, and love.
Our future is created Now. It beckons us forward in urgent ways our founders did not imagine nearly 60 years ago when this congregation began. Please use the button Contribute to this Special Campaign by January 31, 2025. As the needs of our community and our democracy become ever more vital in the coming months, let us continue in what we have begun, with love and courage.
Ubuntu,
I am because you are. You are because I am.
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For your gift to qualify for the generous challenge grant, please make sure to contribute by Jan. 31, 2025.
You can do this by clicking on the Contribute button above and make a gift now (select "Special Campaign" in the drop-down menu).
All gifts are welcome, no matter the size.
If you want to give by transferring stock, using a Donor Advised Fund, give a Qualified Charitable Distribution from an IRA, or use another method, please contact .
For tax purposes, all gifts (including stock/IRA gifts) will still count in 2024 tax year if we hear from you by December, 31 2024.
